My little maiden of four years old No myth, but a genuine child is she, With her bronze-brown eyes and her curls of gold- Rubbing her shoulder with rosy palm, As the loathsome touch seemed yet to thrill her, A horrible, crawling caterpillar!" And with mischievous smile she could scarcely smother, 66 She added, While they were about it, mother I wish they'd just finished the butterfly!" They were words to the thought of the soul that turns Ah, look thou largely, with lenient eyes, The passing phase of the meanest thing! What if God's great angels, whose waiting love From the holy height of their heaven above, Could n't bear with the worm till the wings should grow? ELIZABETH H. WHITTIER. CHARITY. THE pilgrim and stranger, who, For gifts, in his name, of food and through the day, Holds over the desert his trackless way, rest, The tents of Islam, of God are blest. Where the terrible sands no shade Thou, who hast faith in the Christ No sound of life save his camel's Shall the Koran teach thee the Law Thou hast more than he can buy Oh, for boyhood's painless play, Of the black wasp's cunning way, Oh, for boyhood's time of June, Whispering at the garden wall, Larger grew my riches too; Oh, for festal dainties spread, Like my bowl of milk and bread, Pewter spoon and bowl of wood, On the door-stone, gray and rude! O'er me, like a regal tent, Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent, Purple-curtained, fringed with gold Looped in many a wind-swung fold; While for music came the play Of the pied frogs' orchestra; And, to light the noisy choir, Lit the fly his lamp of fire. I was monarch; pomp and joy Waited on the barefoot boy. Every morn shall lead thee through Quick and treacherous sands of sin. IN SCHOOL-DAYS. STILL sits the school-house by the road, A ragged beggar sunning; Around it still the sumachs grow, And blackberry-vines are running. Within, the master's desk is seen, Deep scarred by raps official; The warpiry floor, the battered seats, The jack knife's carved initial; The charcoal frescoes on its wall; Long years ago a winter sun It touched the tangled golden curls, For near her stood the little boy Pushing with restless feet the snow The west-winds blow, and, singing low, I hear the glad streams run; No longer forward nor behind I plough no more a desert land, Rebukes my painful care. I break my pilgrim staff, I lay The angel sought so far away The airs of spring may never play Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look Enough that blessings undeserved Have marked my erring track; That wheresoe'er my feet have swerved, Forty flags with their silver stars, Forty flags with their crimson bars, Flapped in the morning wind: the sun His chastening turned me back; Of noon looked down, and saw not That more and more a Providence Of love is understood, one. Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then, Making the springs of time and sense Bowed with her fourscore years and Sweet with eternal good; - That death seems but a covered way That care and trial seem at last, Through Memory's sunset air, Like mountain-ranges overpast, In purple distance fair;— That all the jarring notes of life Seem blending in a psalm, And all the angles of its strife Slow rounding into calm. And so the shadows fall apart, And so the west-winds play; And all the windows of my heart I open to the day. BARBARA FRIETCHIE, corn, Up from the meadows rich with Green-walled by the hills of Maryland; Round about them orchards sweep, Apple and peach-tree fruited deep, Fair as a garden of the Lord, To the eyes of the famished rebel horde, On that pleasant morn of the early fall, When Lee marched over the mountain wall, Over the mountains winding down, Horse and foot, into Frederick town. ten; |